Red Rose
by Jupiter'Cobalt
Summary: Kagamine Len heads to the flower shop, looking for the perfect gift for his special-someone. Len/Rin/Miku Short Serires.
1. Chapter 1: Red Rose

This was going to be another One Shot, but I decided it would work better if I broke it up into two short chapters. Here's the first one; Number two will be up… Eventually. I don't like setting deadlines. But expect it soon, as I've been in the mood for writing lately.

Also, for some reason I saw fit to set up the end of this chapter as a 'surprise.' _As if anyone who reads this wouldn't see it coming._

Ah, well. Moving on…

EDIT: Unfortuantely, the flashdrive I stored the progress on chapter two for has gone missing. I'll have to start over, and it'll be delayed. By a lot. Sorry.

--

**Red Rose**

Len was standing in front of the store window, looking in at the colorful bouquets of flowers on the other side. Grouped into lilies and daisies, violets and lilacs, he looked over each one carefully. He took in the slightness of the scents drifting towards him from behind the glass window, savoring each as it reached him. He looked at the beautiful shades of color that each had, mystified by the rainbow myriad of blushes and tints. Then he looked at the price tags. Each time he saw one, he sighed.

'They can't _really_ expect me to be able to afford these things, can they?' he thought. Holding the few dollar bills he had left in his possession, he counted it up in his hand. 'Four dollars…' He folded and put them back in his pocket. 'Not much I can get with that…'

Shuffling inside the double doors, he eyed each of the flowers standing alone in vases on a shelf behind the main counter, mixed in with all of the expensive groupings he saw before he entered. They were cheaper, but he didn't want a cheap flower. The girl he was getting it for was worth more than four dollars of cheap plants. She deserved more.

But he was still here. Getting her one.

He sighed and approached the counter.

"Um… Excuse me, Miss…" The girl dressed in the store's uniform, a blue-and-white vertical-striped shirt with a long white apron, stood up from the boxes she was sorting behind the counter. Her two blue-green pig-tails, almost the same length as she was, fell out from behind her, covering her face. She brushed them away.

"…Len?"

He blinked.

"Miku?"

Hatsune Miku, standing behind the counter, awkwardly met the gaze of Kagamine Len, her fellow student at the local high school.

"I… Didn't know you worked here, Miku." Len said with a bit of surprise.

"Well, I, uh… I didn't know you shopped here, Len."

"I usually don't," Len explained. "But tomorrow's a special occasion."

"What would that be?"

"Well… I, um…" He looked at the ground and blushed. "I'd rather not say, actually…"

"Oh…?" Miku thought for a moment. "…Oh! Could it be that… You're shopping for a girlfriend?"

Embarrassed, Len's head shot up and he said, protesting, "She's not my girlfriend! Well, I mean, not yet, anyway…"

Miku slowly nodded in understanding.

"I see… So you need a flower or two to ask out that special someone?"

Len nodded, again blushing and again looking at the floor.

"Well then, how can I help you?" She said cheerfully. "We've got plenty of things to choose from, as you can see. What do you think she'd like?"

"Uh… Well, I'm not really sure, actually…" Len thought for a moment. "But… I think she likes roses."

Miku smiled. "Well, let me see…" She turned around and searched the shelves. After a few seconds, she said, "Ah-ha! Here we go…" She took down a small vase full of bright red roses and placed it on the counter. "What do you think? Would these work?"

Len looked at the flowers, and then looked at the price tag hanging from its said.

"Er… I…"

"What's wrong?"

"…I… Don't think I'd be able to afford that, actually…" He looked away sadly.

"Hm…" Miku looked at the roses and then at Len. She said, "Alright. I've got an idea." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her wallet. Digging through it, she took out her credit card and flashed it in front of him. Shining the price gun on the flower's tag, she slid her card in the machine next to the cash register and smiled. Len's mouth was half open as she pushed the flowers towards him.

"Well, Len, thank you for your purchase. We thank you for shopping here and value your business." She winked at him. "Please come again."

Len held the vase, which was thin enough at its middle to fit in one hand, and was rushed out the door by Miku as she came around the counter. Len stuttered as he gripped the situation.

"I-! Uh, thank you!"

Miku nodded. "Don't mention it. I'll see you at school on Monday." Just before the doors closed, she called out, "And good luck!"

Len was stunned but he could still think straight. He had his flowers, and the big day was tomorrow. Tomorrow, after they both went out for their routine morning walk, he'd surprise her with the roses and ask her to be his girlfriend. Tomorrow, he would ask out his sister. Kagamine Rin.


	2. Chapter 2: Gemini

Finally got this done. I ended up scrapping two unnamed One Shot ideas and pulling them into this one. I figured that it would be better to have one completed document sitting in my Word file then three uncompleted ones. Eh, they'll be other One Shots. But there's only one Red Rose.

Also, I apologize again that this took so long to write. Thieves or my own incompetence are to blame. Take your pick.

**Red Rose – Chapter 2**

"Len! Hurry up!"

His sister's sweet voice called out with to him from the bottom of their home's staircase, lined with a tone of annoyance but said in a way that kept her cute. Len had been taking up a good part of the last hour in his room. 'Getting ready,' he told her, while he was actually fully prepared to leave, and was in fact cowering in front of the mirror as his nerves told him that he couldn't possibly do this. Rin had waiting patiently for him until thirty minutes had gone by, at which point she called out his name every five minutes and told him that she was going to leave without him. She wasn't, of course, but she figured that he would at least hurry up a bit if she made it sound like a serious threat.

He hadn't, and she was beginning to think that he just wasn't going to come down. "I told you, I'm coming!" Len called back down to her. "Just a few minutes more. I swear, I'm on my way."

Rin stomped her foot on the wood flooring. "I'm not warning you again; hurry up or I'm going on my own!"

When no response came, she opened and closed the door while staying inside. Seconds later, Len came rushing down the stairs and, too fast to stop himself, slammed him arm on the wall. Rin, having successfully tricked her brother, smiled in satisfaction. "Ready yet?"

Len grumbled and rubbed his arm. "I guess…"

"Good. Then let's get going."

Opening the door, Rin stepped out into the warm spring air. Wearing pink shorts, a white t-shirt, and putting on a pair of dark sunglasses, she breathed in the warm wave of air that hit her. Her hair was tied up in a clean white ribbon, with her silky blonde bangs falling just in front of her soft blue eyes. "Wonderful day," she said as she started towards the sidewalk, Len close behind.

'It's a good thing she hasn't turned around yet,' he thought, 'Or she'd notice that I'm sweating an ocean.' His face turned red as thoughts about telling her ran through his mind. Back at their house, a collection of red roses sat in a water-filled vase by a window in their second-floor room, set up by Len mere seconds before Rin called him down. With them was a note on a folded white card with the Gemini symbol on its cover and no printed words inside. His _plan_ was for her to enter the room before him, see the roses and read the note he left for her, and for him to sneak up behind her to give her a kiss. But he didn't have a good track record for planning, so the outcome could be his hopes and dreams or a restraining order. But he didn't have time to dwell on that. As while he was worrying they were approaching the half-way mark on their walking path, which ran in a circle from the house around their neighborhood and back to their house again. He didn't have a single thing in mind to say to her when she read the letter, his fears that she would be disgusted with him ran rampant throughout his mind, and apparently she had been talking to him the entire time he'd been worrying.

She turned to him. "…Don't you think so, too?"

'…Crap.' Len thought. "Uh, yeah. I agree."

Through her sunglasses, he could tell she looked surprised. "Really? I didn't take you for the type of person to be into that sort of thing."

'Oooh, God, what did I just agree to?' "Erm… Yes, well, uh… I guess that we don't know everything about each other, then."

"Hm." She said, pleasantly surprised. "Do you actually write any, then?"

'…Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap…' "Uh… What exactly?"

Rin looked at him and rolled her eyes. "Poetry, dummy. Do you write any or just read it?"

'…Huh.' He thought a moment. 'This… This could work out, actually.' "I… Have written some, yeah…"

"Well then," she said, looking ahead. "You'll have to show me some sometime."

"I'll, uh… I'll be sure to."

A few minutes of mostly silent walking later, the two of them were stepping back through their home's front door. Rin pulled off her sunglasses, placing them on a countertop, and said, "Well, thanks for coming along with me again today, Len. I wish that we could do stuff like this more often."

Len nodded. "Yeah… Luckily, school's almost over. We should have more free time together then."

"Mmm…" She stepped up a few of the stairs. "Want to watch some TV?"

"Sure, I'll be up in a minute."

"Kay then." She headed up the rest of the stairs and made the turn toward their room. Len waited until he heard the door open before tip-toeing up the stairs after her.

Entering the room, Rin stretched her arms to the air with her eyes closed. Opening them as her arms fell back to her sides, she saw a vase of flowers, along with a card, sitting on top of a bed-side table. Not entirely sure what they were, she walked over to them. She could smell the roses' aroma from across the room, and it intensified as she stepped closer. Picking up the card as she took in the scent, she looked at the Gemini symbol on its cover and flipped it open to see handwritten words inside.

_Even if we're far apart, we'll find each other again,_

_Together we make up both sides of a constellation,_

_Even when the noise does rise, even on those lonely nights,_

_Me and you, together we make up Gemini…_

_I Love you. Hope you love me, too._

_-Len_

She dropped the card. 'L… Len wrote this?' she thought. 'I… Does this mean…'

Sneaking through the still open door, Len quietly crept up behind her. Spinning around at the slight noise, her face was flushed red with shock and embarrassment as Len's lips pressed up against hers. Len was filled with adrenaline, Rin was filled with confusion.

A few moments later, their lips parted. The kiss Len gave her was over, replaced with an awkward silence in which the two of them stared into each other's eyes, their faces only inches apart. Len feared the worst, but felt that he was ready for it. At least she would know. He expected a violent retribution from her. Because of this, he was surprised when she closed in on him as he did to her. Thoughts rushed through his mind as he slowly realized: She kissed him back.


	3. Chapter 3: Aftermath

I came up with another way to end this, as I wasn't very satisfied with the one from chapter two. This may or may not be better. But I did it anyway.

**Red Rose – Aftermath**

The next Monday, Hatsune Miku was getting her books for class out of her locker. It was finals week, but the last thing on her mind were tests. The entire weekend, ever sense she had given those flowers to Len, she'd been wondering who it was that he gave them to. She thought at first that maybe it was Neru, but decided that sense the incident they had in the cafeteria, she couldn't be it. The next thought was Luka, but that was quickly dismissed for age difference. She even considered Haine Lin, but figured that wasn't likely as they just broke up the month before. It was truly bugging her, and she couldn't wait until she saw Len to ask him how it all went; and who it went with.

She didn't have to wait long, however, as she saw Len and his sister walking down the hallway to their first period, as they always do. She turned and smiled, waving at them from across the hall. When they smiled and waved back, however, she noticed something strange. They were holding hands.

The two reached her locker. "Morning, Miku," Len said. "How are you today?"

"I'm doing great, Len, thanks. How about you two? Doing well?"

"Well, uh…" Len said as he chuckled nervously. Both he and his sister looked at the ground for a moment. "Yeah, I'd say we're doing just fine. Oh, hey, I never paid you back for Saturday. Here…" He reached into his back pocket and took out two twenties. "Keep the change; you really did me a big favor."

Miku, as Len forced the money into her hands, said, "No, no, I can't take this, Len. Please, keep it."

Len shook his head. "Miku, I want you to have it. I can't think of any other way to thank you."

"Well…" She looked again at Rin and Len's held hands. "You could tell me who they were for."

Len laughed a bit, then winked at her, friendlily. "I think you already know."

"My turn to thank you, Miku," Rin said. "In advance for not telling anyone."

Miku, surprisingly, nodded and smiled, completely unphased by the blatant display of incest, and said, "Just be glad it wasn't Neru's shift at the shop last weekend. She's much more gossipy than me."

The twins smiled and went off to class, as Miku got ready for her own day ahead, trying now not to think of her own brother, Mikuo, like Rin apparently thought of hers.


End file.
